Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telecommunication systems and, more particularly, to a method of sharing capabilities information between the nodes of a radio telecommunications network.
Description of Related Art
In cellular telecommunications networks, each network node includes exchange data which is utilized by the node to interface with other nodes in the network. The exchange data includes data relating to the communications protocols supported by each node in the network as well as service support capabilities. The introduction of any new node within a cellular telecommunications networks currently requires extensive modification to the exchange data of the existing nodes in the network which are to interact with the new node. In the same manner, the exchange data of the new node must also be created, and updated to include all the necessary information regarding the existing nodes in the network with which the new node will interface. The process of loading, updating, and verifying exchange data is not automated, and thus is manually intensive and error prone.
Existing solutions do not permit the validation or the automatic creation of the exchange data using current and valid information as provided in real-time by the network. In addition, two-way sharing of information is not taught or suggested in the prior art. PCT International Patent Application WO 95/30960 to Lofgren discloses an apparatus for providing to a master device, capability information corresponding to slave devices communicating therewith. The capability information is used by the master device for communicating with the slave devices. However, information is only sent one way (slave to master), and only information relating to the communications capabilities of the slave devices is sent.
In order to overcome the disadvantage of existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have a method of sharing capabilities information between the nodes of a telecommunications network. The present invention provides such a method.